Social. Mobile. Complete.

Monday Nov 05, 2012

The debate of which is better:“best of breed” business applications vs. an
integrated suite is certainly not a new conversation. This has been argued between IT vendors and
CIOs for years. It’s also important to clarify
that “best of breed” does not necessarily translate into being the richest functionality;
rather it’s often about just having the best fit solution to solve a specific
business problem or need.So what does
cloud have to do with the niche vs. suite debate?

Consuming business applications in a cloud or SaaS deployment
model can change the best of breed vs. suite discussion - if the cloud is done
right.It’s having your cake and eating
it too only better:you don’t have to gather
all the ingredients or wait to bake your cake, and you can adjust how big of
slice you take.

Before you eat, it’s worth pausing to recall much of what we learned
about IT over the last decade. These basic IT principles still hold true even
though the financial model has changed from buying to renting.In other words, what’s under the technology
hood still matters.Architecture and
development methodologies like building an application based on open standards
so it works with other systems - is still important. Data and information silos, complex
integrations, and proprietary technologies that lock you in, are still bad.

While some may argue that IT no longer matters with cloud,
the opposite is actually true.If
anything cloud can help return IT back to its rightful place as key strategic
asset vs. a liability on the balance sheet.The “I” in CIO was never meant to stand for “integration” yet it’s
amazing how much time and money is poured into these types of initiatives for
most organizations each year.Rather the
“I” needs to stand for “innovation”. This is where Oracle SaaS can uniquely help.

Oracle’s application strategy has not really changed over the
years.It’s always been about bringing
the best and richest functionality across the enterprise to our customers while
leveraging a common, standards-based, and enterprise-grade platform. So not jut best fit, but the best capabilities
based on the input of thousands of enterprise customers across the globe. Oracle invests billions in R&D every year
to add new capabilities to the broadest cloud portfolio in the industry,
spanning across functional pillars like CRM, HCM, ERP, etc.And where it makes sense, Oracle combines key
strategic acquisitions to complement organic functionality.The result is best of breed delivered in a suite.Again this is not something new.

The game changer now with cloud is that it impacts HOW Oracle
customers adopt the richest, most modern applications across the business – and
continue on getting it.Consuming oracle
applications in the cloud means you can adopt new capabilities and updates very
quickly and easily.There’s no hardware
to buy or software to manage.Oracle
does it for you.

Low upfront costs and an OpEx financial model is the easy
part.Oracle Cloud Applications take it a
big step further.For organizations that
demand having the latest and richest functionality and accelerating the time to
value from their IT investment, Oracle Cloud is the right path.It’s about holistically changing the “hows”
and the “whys” of the organization by leveraging transformational innovations
like social, mobile, and big data in a consistent and more powerful way.Not just about sales force automation or
talent management.These technologies
should impact all parts of the company and Oracle Cloud is the enterprise-grade
delivery vehicle.

Oracle SaaS helps break down barriers of adoption and is
eases the headache of upgrades, investing in new supporting hardware, or adding
internal expertise to manage it all.With Oracle Cloud, customers can get best of breed capabilities in
either a full suite model or a la carte.And because it’s entirely built on open standards, it’s built to
co-exist with existing IT investments.Updates can be automatic or delayed based on a customer’s
requirements.And it’s complete – a full
suite of cross pillar functionality.Even
better, if you don’t like it, need more or less, just turn the dial up or
down.Just like your utility bill, you pay for what
you use, and can consume more or less power whenever you need it.Lower cost, lower investment risk, without
compromising on functionality, security, or performance.

Technology still matters in the cloud.So our cloud customers also like that when
they adopt our cloud applications, they also get the best underlying
technology, from the middleware and database platform down to infrastructure
and Oracle’s engineered systems.Therefore it’s not just the greatest and latest in application
functionality, but everything underneath that makes it work is also the latest
and greatest.

The best of breed technology stack powering best of breed
business applications, and all delivered in a subscription based model.The best of both worlds.Yep, that’s the idea.